"Rob the Mob" is the entertaining true story of a Queens couple who came up with an insane way to make big money back in 1992: They started robbing Mafia social clubs. Apparently, guns are never allowed into these clubs, and wise guys like to carry big wads of cash. Hence, lots of wise guys, lots of fat wallets and no risk ... at least in the moment.

The film is partly a comedy because no movie with protagonists this stupid could be a straight drama. And yet the film contains a lot of truth about its place and time, from Deee-lite grooving on the opening credits ("Groove Is in the Heart") to the portrait of mobsters and how they're regarded in the community - not as honorable, not as anti-heroes, but as frightening parasites.

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'Rob the Mob'

Rated R: for pervasive language, some sexual material and brief drug use

Running time: 104 minutes

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It's the young couple here that's sympathetic, two nitwits in love, who don't want a life without money, and so they turn to crime, but the most moral crime imaginable, robbing crooks. The two are played with lots of romantic chemistry by Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda. Pitt is already well known ("The Dreamers," "Last Days"), but this is the first major film role for Arianda, a stage actress who has already conquered New York with a Tony Award for "Venus in Fur."

Indeed, for all its other virtues, "Rob the Mob" could easily be remembered mainly for Arianda, as the movie that introduced her to a film audience. She has the big, expressive features of a natural comedian, but with a radiance that makes every eye turn to her. Her acting has audacity, wit and impulsiveness, and she creates, in Rosie, an indelible character, harmonizing into one being many seeming contradictions - shrewdness, dimness, savvy, naivete. Seriously, if Arianda doesn't end up a big star, and soon, something is really wrong with American cinema.

When Tommy (Pitt) picks up an Uzi and has his girlfriend drive him to a Mafia club, the two set in motion a series of events involving the police, the FBI, several crime families and a two-fisted tabloid columnist (Ray Romano). That most of what's depicted here actually happened is remarkable. Even more remarkable is that it has taken more than 20 years for somebody to make a movie about it.

Director Raymond De Felitta has a feel for this world and its atmosphere, from the clutter and casual ugliness of the streets, to the insularity of the mentality, to the unexpected sweetness and vulnerability of the people. In his and screenwriter Jonathan Fernandez's point of view, everyone in "Rob the Mob" has his reasons - the cops, the press and even the gentleman don, played by Andy Garcia - but only Rosie and Tommy are pure. They can barely think straight, and yet they're the only ones thinking clearly.